The manufacture of aircraft fuselages or other aeronautical structures such as wings is carried out in known manner by the assembly of rigid panels, which are generally of metal, onto a structure. For this the panels, which are planar or curved, are placed in position on the structure and assembled thereto for example by riveting. This requires being able to machine the assembly once the panels are in position, typically in order to produce the bores necessary for the riveting.
These operations may be carried out by an operator. The development of robots of large size capable of producing the bores over the entirety of a fuselage is costly.
In order to make these bores or perform other simple machining operations on assemblies of large size, rapidly and with accuracy, devices have nevertheless been developed in order to partly automate these operations.
For example, European Patent Application EP1761360 presents a machine tool comprising two parallel flexible rails which are fastened to the structure to be machined. The fastening of the rails onto the structure is carried out using suction cups. A machining means, typically a drill, travels between the two rails, along a transverse module.
Such a device is however complicated to implement, in that it comprises two rails which must be perfectly parallel. Furthermore, by construction, the width between the two rails, and the area which can be reached by the machining tool, are limited. Lastly, such a device is not adapted to a surface having a strong double curvature, on account of the difficulty in positioning two rails parallel on such a surface. A pronounced double curvature is present in certain zones of aeronautical structures and in particular of certain fuselages.
In addition, other objects, desirable features and characteristics will become apparent from the subsequent summary and detailed description, and the appended claims, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings and this background.